I rented a motorbike for a couple of days. The price is ridiculous, 180,000 kip about $23 at a fair exchange rate, which is not readily obtainable here. All over Southeast Asia motorbikes rent for $2 to $5 a day.
I set out to the biggest attraction near this little town, Kuang Si waterfalls. There are several alternate spellings, but I have elected to use the variant on the sign over the entrance to the park. Google maps indicates that the falls are in the middle of this flat town nestled at the confluence of the Nam Kahn and Mekong rivers in Central Laos. This is geographically impossible as the town terrain is flat. Misinformation seems to rule here, see my previous post on lost.
The motorbike was delivered with little gas to no great surprise. I headed off and quickly found a gas station. None of the pumps were operating and some women sat around with 1.5 liter plastic bottles that originally held drinking water. This is a common means of reselling gasoline in rural areas. That is sufficient fuel to drive these 125 cc motorbikes fifty kilometers, but in my experience is not common within cities. I opted for the station across the street but found the situation similar. Five Vietnamese sat around a steel barrel. One man held a 20 mm plastic tube with his thumb over the end and periodically filled a brass pitcher which was then emptied though a galvanized funnel into a plastic bottle. I found the participation of five people to accomplish this task hilarious and asked if I could take a photograph. The people were amused at my amusement.
I set off without consulting a map and went a long ways from town. The paved road gave way to a newly excavated swath of earth recently carved out of the side of a mountain. Heavy construction equipment of all types roared down the roads, belching diesel exhaust and raising dust. I was obviously heading in the wrong direction, to no great surprise and when my gas gauge indicated I had consumed half my fuel turned around. I was unlikely to find fuel in this unpopulated stretch of newly formed road.
I saw a sign that indicated that there was a bat cave and looked for a trail. With none in evidence I called out at the the first bamboo hut that I encountered. Shortly thereafter a man emerged, shirtless and fastening his belt. I had obviously interrupted his late morning nap but he was pleasant about it. I inquired about the location of the cave by showing him a pictu
re of the sign and he pointed off into the jungle. No path was evident. Reading my confused look, he donned some flip flops and motioned me to follow.
We walked down an incline, forded a fast moving river, walked along the bank and pushed our way through dense foilage, unable to see the ground in an area teeming with large cobras. Why am I doing this? A short while later we hopped a small chain link fence and sat on the edge of a rock lined hole. He indicated that I should enter. I had no desire to negotiate small, filthy openings without a flashlight, the end result would be to just be dirty in the dark.
We returned to his house and his wife joined us, cradling a suckling infant, her shirt pushed up to bare her breasts, but the words “You Suck!” were still visible. I am sure she had no idea what the words meant. They offered me some drinking water and I inquired as to the location of the waterfall. How does one do that, one might ask? I pantomimed tipping my glass of water and the water flowing over the edge of the table, shrugged my shoulders and raised my hands questioningly. This elicited a laugh and a shake of the head. Obviously I was nowhere close. After a short while as I was departing someone arrived on a motorbike. The man with whom I was “conversing” spoke to the new arrival in Laotian and the man turned to me and told me that the waterfall was in the opposite direction from town. Of course it was. I made no effort to actually ascertain that I was headed in the right direction not that with my navigational skills the net result would have been different.
I returned to my hotel, showered, took a brief nap and headed off to the night market.
The following day I decided that two failed attempts we enough and vowed to actually go to the falls. I rented the bike again, this time it also had no gasoline, despite the fact that I had returned it with half a tank. Obviously someone at the company drains the tanks. I barely made it to a gas station and easily find the falls. Preceding the actual park was a stretch of road with vendors in permanent structures selling tourist wares. A sign indicated that motorbikes could be rented for 2,000 kip about $0.25. Wow! Of course to get here one would have to take a taxi and the bikes had to be returned to the point of rental and there was nothing to see in the area.
One gets to the falls by walking through a bear rescue center. Malaysian sun bears and other asiatic bears listlessly laid in the heat of the day and gazed back at the tourists with bored expressions. These bears were rescued from bile harvesting operations throughout Asia.
The approach to the falls along a well maintained trail was along shallow pools of clear blue/green water that cascaded down the gentle slope. The actual falls are broad and tall but, at least at this time of the year, had but a small water flow. Beside the base of the falls was a trail that lead to the top, over picturesque bridges. At the top, the stream can be negotiated by natural stepping stones of limestone that have not yet been dissolved, I don’t think erosion is an appropriate description of the process as loss is probably not due to abrasion in this slow moving, clear water with little suspended matter.
I walked down the alternate path on the far side and stopped and bought a fresh fruit smoothie for 5,000 kip, I needed a little sugar after the climb. A half liter of water was 10,000 kip, go figure.
There was supposedly a Hmong village nearby, but it wasn’t on a map and none of the various taxi, tuk tuk or van drivers knew where the place was. The conversations were brief. I would inquire “Hmong Village?” and there would be a brief discussion within the vehicle. They knew what I was saying and what it meant, but didn’t know where the village was. No great loss, I have seen many.
In the course of another quiet evening I received an email from a German woman who had just flown into town. She was looking for a travel buddy to go explore rural Laos. Awesome.
We met up yesterday, walked around, found a company that sold transportation, got some tips on destinations and decided to head out Wednesday morning. Although the representative tried to tell us that the only way between some of the destinations was by private car, some quick research on the web resulted in some confidence that there is transportation, if only by local bus. A local bus probably means an overcrowded, ill maintained vehicle with hard plastic seats, no air conditioning and farm animals on the bus. Interesting way to to travel for three or four hours, a bit much for eight hour trips. Our tentative destinations are Luang Namtha, Pak Mong, Nong Khiaw, Luang Namtha, Muang Khan, Phansavanh,Vientiane. Then to Myanmar through Thailand.
Andrea is a cool woman, she found a shop that could actually get 3G working on a phone and walked me there and I bought another SIM and had my 3G working before I left the shop. Andrea certainly “did” Indonesia far better than I, having gone to Borneo and seen Orangatans and Komodo to see the worlds largest monitor lizards. She is German, but speaks excellent English, is soft spoken, adventurous and easy going. This should be fun.
I will try to keep you posted.
More Pictures
Motorbiking without a destination
Jonathan Allen LaFleur
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